Lady 'Cats win in 4 sets over LC
Lead Summary
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
MOWRYSTOWN — The match momentum and outlook completely changed Tuesday night at Whiteoak High School during the Lady 'Cats' Volley for a Cure event against the Lynchburg-Clay Lady Mustangs.
The moment swing went to Whiteoak as they finished off the third set with 17 straight points, en route to a four-set match win over the Lady Mustangs in a Highland County rivalry match.
Scores for the match were: 25-18 LC and the next three went to WHS at 25-18, 25-7 and 25-14.
But the rivalry matchup between the two schools was put on hold for a better cause, as the Lady 'Cats Volley for a Cure event raised money for breast cancer awareness for the Susan G. Komen fund as October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. During the game, raffles were held and each team wore jerseys in support of the event. LC wore pink with white writing and WHS had white with pink letters.
When the game was being held, WHS didn't hold back, especially during the aforementioned third set.
At one point the set was tied at 7-7, but that's when the entire complexion changed for the set as WHS scored 17 straight points for the set win.
After WHS took the lead on an own net hit by LC, points for WHS were scored by sophomore Christine Hamilton, junior Jessie Gilliland, senior Kari Fannin and senior Jessica Caplinger.
During the run, Hamilton had eight aces, and the final two points were scored by Gilliland. Gilliland had a leaping hit from the corner for the 11th point of the third set. WHS won the set 25-7.
"Christine has a strong serve," WHS coach Don Rahe said.
Also in the third set, junior Brooke Burns had two blocks for WHS and freshman Mckenzee Martin had an ace early on.
"We couldn't believe it," Rahe said of scoring 17 points in a row. "We've haven't done anything like that before, but that comes with practice. It was surprising because they (LC) are such a good receiving team, but again, we practice fundamentals all the time.
"We just practice the basics and our girls get sick of hearing that, but they work hard at it. They work hard at becoming athletes."
In set one, LC was the winner at 25-18, scoring three straight points to seal the win.
Early in set one, LC's Daisy Christophel scored and Magan Stegbauer put LC up 8-5 with a couple big hits.
Each team continued to answer the other's points with the score being tied twice and points being scored by LC sophomore Claire Magie on an ace and Elizabeth Spidel, also on an ace. Senior Hannah Blankenship put LC up 23-18 with a hit that the Lady 'Cats were unable to return over the net. The set ended with WHS hitting their own net.
Set two was close as it was tied nine different times all the way up to 18-18.
Spidel put LC up 3-1 with an ace early on, but the score quickly went tied at 3-3, 4-4, 6-6 and 9-9. Whiteoak senior Brittany Tolliver tied the game at six ,and freshman Sawyer Rammel gave LC an 9-8 advantage.
Caplinger, along with Fannin and senior Lori Bratton, helped tie the second set at 15.
"The girls have a great attitude. It's all them, I just show them the way," Rahe said of how his team won the final three sets. "Also, our setters did an excellent job of getting the ball to our hitters. Lori (Bratton) and Kari (Fannin) got the ball to the hitters and that was the difference in the game. They allowed our hitters to put the game away."
With more points from Stegbauer, LC tied the game back at 18, but after that it was WHS the rest of the way. Tolliver had an ace for the 24th point and LC hit their own net to end set two.
In the fourth set, Whiteoak jumped out to a 5-0 lead, giving them a total of 22 consecutive points scored on LC (including the 17 aforementioned to end set three).
Fannin in the 5-0 run had two aces. Stegbauer had an ace later in the set to cut the WHS lead in half at 6-3.
Late in the fourth set, LC scored six straight to fight off elimination, but it was a push by Tolliver and a block by Burns that gave the match win to Whiteoak.
In news pertaining to LC, their coach, Erin Walters, didn't attend the game as she went into labor earlier in the day, according to Rahe.
Rahe was proud of the effort of his team.
"We are blessed to have two big hitters (Burns and Caplinger), and Brittany and Jessie can hit and serve. We are eight strong on the court, plus our bench is good, too."
For the game Tolliver and Gilliland each had six kills. Caplinger finished with four kills and four blocks. Burns had three kills and three blocks.
WHS is now 12-3 overall.